In February 2018, Maritime Pastoral Training Foundation, Ltd. was founded as a non-profit charitable organization. On March 7, 2018 the Internal Revenue Service confirmed MPTF's status as a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt charity. We created MPTF to try and provide the inland waterways with the same kind of shipboard training opportunities as those found in coastal areas or on the Great Lakes. To accomplish this, we set our sights on acquiring the historic Vietnam War gunboat, PTF-26, with an impressive 20 year record of public service both as an eye-popping operational museum ship & an award-winning Sea Scout training vessel based in Sacramento, CA. Our present focus is to relocate PTF-26 from the Sacramento River to the Ohio River (to Paducah and/or Louisville) by mid-September 2020. Renamed T/S JESSE L. BROWN, PTF-26 will serve both as a traveling museum exhibit, affiliated with the Louisville Naval Museum, Inc. , and as a training vessel for maritime-oriented youth organizations (Sea Cadets, Sea Scouting, NJROTC), maritime chaplains and prospective mariners throughout our region. Plans call for PTF-26 to be the home to the Maritime Chaplains School, tentatively scheduled to convene Summer 2021. This 21-day residential basic course for aspiring maritime chaplains would be sponsored and conducted by The Seamen's Church Institute onboard PTF-26.
